The 2012 Supreme Court decision declaring Obamacare, aka the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, constitutional should have put the issue to rest. Only, it isn’t. Only, Republicans in Congress are still bristling at Chief Justice John Roberts’ unexpected deciding vote in favor of the president’s signature legislative accomplishment. Only, after more than 30 votes in the US House to repeal the federal takeover of America’s healthcare | Read More »

Jonathan Weisman and Matthew Wald write in The New York Times, “Since last year’s elections, Republicans in Congress have struggled for traction on their legislative efforts, torn between conservatives who drove the agenda after the 2010 landslide and new voices counseling a shift in course to reflect President Obama’s re-election and the 2012 loss of Republican seats in the House and the Senate.” Enter the | Read More »

Beyond speeches and platform votes, last week’s Republican Convention had an important purpose: to redirect the national conversation to problems voters face every day: fewer jobs, lower wages, rising energy costs, and the prospect that our children’s future is being sold away to pay for the present. The US National Debt clock was on prominent display, which has now approached a staggering $16 Trillion. According | Read More »

As part of our continuing effort to keep our clients and friends up-to-date on the political environment as we head toward Election Day,2012, every Friday WPA compiles the key numbers from the week and provides analysis of key trends. In addition to the key political numbers, this week’s analysis includes: A look Paul Ryan’s image boost after he became the Republican VP nominee. The Presidential | Read More »

In the aftermath of the horrific attack in Aurora, Colorado, those on the left have taken up their usual response to such tragedies-push for more restrictions on gun rights. They didn’t wait long, the following morning found a chorus of pundits and elected officials calling for more restrictive gun control. Public opinion suggests that these calls are unlikely to be effective. In the first poll | Read More »

It is now less than 11 months until American voters will pick our next (and hopefully new) President. While most of the stories you’ll read are, rightly, about the Republican nominating contests, the fundamentals of the general elections are taking shape around us every day and worth an examination. So let’s take a look at a few key measures—some of which apply to any incumbent, | Read More »

For those who missed it last week, Doug Schoen released a fascinating poll consisting of in-person interviews of n=200 Occupy Wall Street protesters. The topline report can be found here and is worth reading in its entirety. It provides a glimpse into some of the real lunatic fringe elements that are part of (but not the whole of) the Occupy Wall Street protests. That “part | Read More »

John Sides had an interesting piece in the New York Times’ FiveThirtyEight blog earlier this month. The full piece is well worth a read for anyone serious about understanding the latest political science research on campaign advertising. Here are links to part one and part two. Sides is a widely published political scientist and the co-founder of one of my daily must-read blogs, The Monkey | Read More »

President Obama is on the road again. Never missing an opportunity to waste taxpayer dollars in an increasingly desperate effort to get a second term, Obama will take his “pass this bill/it’s not my fault” tour to Virginia and North Carolina this week. That certainly makes sense as both are traditional swing states that Obama won in 2008 and where he is polling well below | Read More »

Gallup’s latest data paints a potentially dire picture for Barak Obama, but not one so dire that it prevents Democrats from whistling past the graveyard. To recap: Obama’s job approval is down to a miserable 38% in the latest Gallup Poll. But Democrats will point to the fact that his personal favorable ratings are still above 50% according to the latest Real Clear Politics average. | Read More »

Barack Obama ran a campaign in 2008 that, at least superficially, was built on the value proposition that we should move beyond the partisan battles that characterized the previous decades of American politics and instead return to shared set of values to guide our government through compromise. We all know that the policies that Obama advocated, and subsequently enacted, were far more partisan and ideologically | Read More »

While President Obama claims that 80% of Americans want to see their taxes increased to address the Federal deficit, Congress continues to debate raising the debt ceiling and we close in on the highly publicized August 2nd deadline to avoid a government default, there are several points that need to be made to keep claims of public support in context. First, significant numbers of Americans | Read More »

While Michele Bachmann got all the headlines, the real news from the most recent Des Moines Register survey is that there is still room for additional candidates to join the race. The survey, conducted June 19-22 interviewed 400 likely GOP caucus goers on their preferences for Republican candidates for President. Michele Bachmann deserved the headlines she received. She is statistically tied with Mitt Romney (Romney | Read More »

These are dire numbers for the Obama Administration and devastating news for the Obama Administration: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Employment-growth-brakes-rb-325963585.html?x=0&.v=3 Only one President in the last 56 years—Ronald Reagan—has been re-elected with an unemployment rate over six percent and even he faced voters with an economy significantly on the rebound. The unemployment rate is moving in the wrong direction and without a massive turnaround the tides of history are | Read More »

Over the past two months, the Medicare reforms contained in Congressman Paul Ryan’s budget proposal have become an important part of the Democratic message and an issue of controversy. Republicans will need to rebut Democratic mischaracterizations and refocus the debate in a winning way as we move toward 2012. This memo summarizes some recent public opinion and messaging data and our thoughts on how Republican | Read More »